Genetic diversity studies on some pear genotypes using simple sequence repeats (SSRs) derived from apple and pear

Genetic divergence and similarity among diverse 11 pear genotypes was estimated by 120 SSR markers. The primer pairs (120) resulted in amplification of 1915 putative alleles in 11 genotypes with an average of 174.09 alleles per genotype. The total number of alleles amplified with 120 SSR primers in each of the genotype ranged from 146 in Keifer to 192 in Sucker (P. calleryana). The number of alleles detected with 120 SSR primers ranged from 1 to 9 with an average of 3.62 alleles per primer pair. The highest number of alleles was amplified by CH02f06 (9), CH01d 01(8), CH01e09 (7), CH01d09 (6), CH01f12 (6), CH02c06 (6), CH02d12 (6), CH04d10 (6), CH04e03 (6), CH04f10 (6), CH04g 09(6), KU10 (6), BGT23b (6) and HGA8b (6). PIC value ranged from 0 to 0.84 with an average of 0.53 across 11 pear genotypes. On the basis of SSR data, dendrogram clustered the genotypes into two major groups (I and II) and six sub-groups. Genetic similarity values between genotypes ranged from 0.52 to 0.84. Smith and LeConte showed the highest similarity coefficient of 0.84, whereas lowest (0.52) value was observed between major groups I and II.